"I didn't need any second bidding. I went off that very night, and I
never saw my Uncle Eb again.

"After going two or three trips to 'the banks,' I shipped aboard the New
Bedford whaler Henry Clay, knowing well enough that whaling couldn't be
a great sight worse than fishing off Newfoundland in the dead of winter.

"As luck would have it, though, the Henry Clay joined the North Atlantic
fleet and started for the Greenland fishing grounds. We lost the rest of
the fleet in a big blow off Cape Farewell and worked northward alone,
having the good fortune to fall in with several school of right whales,
out of which we captured three or four 'balleeners,'[*] the oil and bone
together being worth something like eighteen thousand dollars.

[Footnote *:
All the large whales of the region referred to are called
"balleeners" as their mouths are furnished with the balleen
or whalebone of commerce.]

"The captain had begun to crow over the fine season we were having,
when, early in October, we were caught in a nip in Cumberland Inlet, and
the ice piled in so solidly around us that we knew we were good for all
winter. There wasn't any particular danger, for the Henry Clay was a
well-built craft, strengthened to withstand just such a squeeze as the
ice-pack was giving us.

"Captain Simon Lewis, as kind-hearted a man as ever I sailed under, made
all needed preparations for winter at once, and we boys before the mast
looked forward to a pretty jolly season.

"We were warmly clad, the fo'castle grub was better than is common with
whalers, and there was every prospect for plenty of fresh meat and good
hunting, as soon as the ice about us should become firm.

"After everything had been made ship-shape, we were given all the
freedom we needed, and the library brought aboard by the officers was
open to common use. Several days after this order of things had been
established, the mate took half a dozen of us younger fellows out for a
long tramp over the ice. There were three guns in the party, and we went
along like a parcel of schoolboys out on a frolic.

"We made only about eight miles before noon, for the ice was so uneven
that the traveling was rougher than any I had ever experienced, when
suddenly, upon rounding an enormous ice hummock, we came in sight of a
group of Esquimaux, sledges and dogs, and were discovered before we
could retreat behind the hummock again.

"The crowd raised a cry of '_Kabulenet! Oomeak! Kabu